Best Day

Today has been the BEST day. Here are the reasons why...

1) First and most importantly we got the results from the EEG Lainey had yesterday and it was normal! Praise God! We thought she might be having little seizures but it turns out she was not. I am so so so thankful. We had been praying, along with friends and family, that they were not seizures, and God surely answered our prayers. My SIL even sent me a video of her and our nephew doing the happy dance! Dance on! Now, I'm still worried about lots of stuff concerning Lainey, but I am not going to let that take away from my joy and thankfulness over this. You gotta celebrate victories when they come.

2) I received an email this morning notifying me that I got a referral credit from Stitch Fix. I wrote a post a while back about my first experience with it. And now that I have $25 credit I can't wait to do it again. Thank you to whoever gave that to me!

3) I received another email this morning notifying me that everyone on the wait list for Parents Night Out at our church gets to go. YAY!! So that means Greg and I get to go on another date night soon. Looking forward to this!

4) Greg worked from home a bit this morning because he had a meeting downtown, and I think he will get to come home a bit early today because he has another meeting in the Woodlands that is not too long. It's always nice when he is home and Cambry loves Daddy time.

We also went to story time at the library today and had a good OT session. Happy Thursday!!

Lainey 7 Months

Size: You weigh 16 lbs. 3 oz. (38%), you are 27 in long (84%), and head is 16.5 in. (24%). I guess the good thing about going to the doctor all the time is that we always know your size! You wear about 6 months or bigger clothes (need longer pants though) and size 2 diaper.

Likes: Your favorite thing is to watch Cambry. And if she comes over and talks to you and "gets" you, you really love that. You like to chew on your toys and chew on your feet. You like to be outside and look around. You think it is funny when Daddy whistles or makes funny noises. You still like baths, as long as big sister doesn't attempt to rinse your hair. The changing pad makes you act so silly for some reason - you always slam your legs down over and over again.

Dislikes: Tummy time for long periods of time, getting dressed after bath, and medicine. Oh medicine. You can keep your mouth clenched so tight it is like a fortress. You are on reflux meds again and it is an ordeal every morning getting you to take it. Which is crazy because the medicine is actually good! The Zantac you used to take was horrid, but your Prevacid is banana pudding flavored and it tastes like a banana sno cone. But then again you love peas but won't eat fruit. Hmmm. Your taste buds are crazy. Oh and you had your first ear infection last week so you are on antibiotics for that. More meds, lucky you!

Working on: Oh gosh what are we not working on these days? We are really working on tummy time, and rolling over. Also trying to sit up. You started PT and OT this month.

Sleeping: You are very good at going to sleep! We still swaddle you and give you the paci but when you are tired I lay you right down and boom you are asleep. It's like you don't even like to be rocked. You take 3 naps a day. Usually your middle nap is the longest - about 2 hours. The morning nap is about an hour and the evening nap is 30 minutes. You go to bed around 7:30 pm. You wake up around 4 am to eat, and then will sleep until 6:00-6:30ish. You usually wake up one other time at night needing a paci. Although ever since your ear infection last week you have gone back to eating twice a night. I have been allowing it because you had such a small appetite the past week so I wanted to get more feedings in, but now that your appetite is back we need to cut out the 1am feeding.

Eating: You eat every 3 1/2 hours or so. I am still trying to introduce you to new fruits and veggies. You like peas, squash, and sweet potato. You ate carrots ok the other day. And a very small amount of bananas. You still don't like apples or other fruits, but we will keep trying.

Now that you have recovered from your ear infection you have gone back to giving us lots of smiles! It is still hard to get a laugh out of you, but sometimes we can and it is the cutest thing. You don't have any teeth yet, but I love your gummy smile. Your hair is getting longer and longer, and I think your eyes are going to be brown. Usually they look dark grayish/hazel but today in the light they looked brownish. We love you so much little one!

A Hard Road

I hesitated to title this post "A Hard Road" because all trials are relative. There are much much harder things. But still, things have been a bit hard lately. And it may get harder, we'll see. I haven't written much about Lainey's health, but I figured I better write about it because it has been a big part of our lives lately. This blog is sort of a journal/scrapbook for our family and this is part of our story.

The first 5 or so months of Lainey's life she struggled big time with tummy issues. She has a milk protein allergy and reflux. It took us months to realize all her crying was something more than just newborn fussiness. Then it took a while to experiment with reflux medicine and cutting out varying levels of dairy before finally realizing that I could have absolutely none whatsoever. We switched her to formula and by 6 months old there was a drastic difference in how she seemed to be feeling. It was a huge answer to prayer that her tummy was finally feeling better. Then last week one of her therapists pointed out that she had signs that she was still struggling with severe reflux. So she is back on medicine again.

A little before 4 months old we took her to the doctor because her eyes were not aligned. We had noticed this for a while, but sort of just assumed it was a newborn thing and would fix itself eventually. Then after some research we realized they should be aligned at that point, so we took her in. We learned she has strabismus, and will need surgery to correct it. Her surgery will be coming up soon. We are hoping one surgery will correct it, but it is likely that she will need more.

I won't go into too much detail on other issues because 1) we don't know much at this point and 2) privacy issues. I often wonder how much I should write on this blog about the girls concerning things they might feel uncomfortable with later. Would Lainey want her medical history described in detail on the Internet? It's hard to know where to draw the line. But, suffice to say that we have seen the pediatrician many times, ophthalmologists, audiologist, neurologists, gastroenterologist, physical therapist, occupational therapist, and more appointments to come. The last few weeks I have been feeling like it is my full time job to schedule and attend appointments.

As a parent you want everything to be perfect for your child. Nothing worrisome. So it is hard knowing something is going on but not knowing how serious it is. The unknown is definitely scary. We love Lainey with all our hearts and want the best for her. We constantly pray for her and pray for our own hearts as well that we would not be anxious during this time. God is drawing us nearer to him as we have to trust the path he is leading us down. And for that I am thankful.

Camping Ritz Style

We went camping over Mother's Day weekend for the first time wtih the girls. I like camping, although there are certain aspects I am not fond of - such as bugs, lack of showers, and sleeping on the ground. BUT, we got to go with my parents in their new RV. Now THAT is my kind of camping :)

We were roughin it. I like to call it the Marriott on Wheels. Kyler likes to call it the Magic Bus.

We had fun hiking on trails and enjoying the scenery. It was hot, but not unbearable. The girls had fun.

The girls did great on the drive there and back. We had them in their car seats the whole time even though by law you don't have to in the RV. They slept most of the way. Probably because they didn't sleep much at night! Poor Lainey was very congested and could not keep her paci in so she would wake up crying throughout the night. Overall though it was a lot of fun and I definitely want to try it again.

Thankful to spend Mother's Day with my sweet mom and with my girls!

Guns, Hair, Peas, and More

I have gotten a little behind on blogging, so here are a random assortment of things from the past couple of weeks.

Guns

The other weekend Greg and I used the Parents Night Out at our church and had a fun date night. We went to the shooting range for the first time together. It was fun, but I realized guns are scarier than I remembered. Some of them were very "explosive" and I did not like that. But I did enjoy shooting the .22. We went to Lupe Tortilla afterward for dinner. Fajitas just do not get any better than that. By the time we picked up the girls and got home it was 10pm. Cambry was wired. She was running around the house asking to play with play dough. There were no signs of sleepiness. Lainey on the other hand went right to sleep when we got home. Overall a very successful night!

Hair

Lainey's hair is getting a bit wild. It is long on top and gets crazy sometimes, especially if we don't smooth it down after bath. She also has some very dark tips and lighter roots. I guess she is going for the ombre look. Or is that dark at the roots and lighter at the end? Hmm, you can see how much I know about style.

She has enough hair to gather it on top into a tiny pony tail, so I have tried that a couple of times.

Peas

We discovered Lainey loves peas. We first offered her puréed fruits like pear and apples, and then sweet potato. She hated them all and would not even open her mouth. Then I tried peas and she gobbled up almost the whole jar in her first sitting. I was in shock. A few days later we tried squash and she liked that too. Let's hope this girls loves her veggies this much when she is 2!

Outdoors

We have been having the best weather lately. I can't believe it is May and not unbearably hot! I think this week is going to be warmer but this weekend was beautiful. We spent most of Saturday outside working on the yard. Lainey watched for a while in her bouncer and Cambry helped with spraying the hose and shaking the fertilizer. Let's hope these flowers last more than a couple weeks.

We also went to our friend Logan's birthday party and it was really cute. They have this really fun plane in the backyard that the kids loved.

Sisters

Usually if I am holding Cambry and Lainey in the chair getting ready for nap time Cambry will be saying "No kicking Lainey!! Noooo Lainey don't get my hair. Nooo Lainey stop getting me!" while trying to nudge Lainey out of the way. But sometimes we can get a cute shot of them and I am so thankful for these 2. I hope as Lainey gets older they will enjoy playing with each other.